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Summary Changing the topology of the electric distribution system through altering the open/closed status of the system switches is executed primarily for 2 reasons: (1) restoring supply to customers due to power outages, referred to as supply or load restoration, and (2) improving system operation through distribution system reconfiguration. In keeping with the latter reason, this study proposes a decision support system (DSS) for multicriteria distribution system reconfiguration, which provides choice modelling and contributes to making optimal decisions concerning minimization of losses, cost of switching, and load balancing index in the system. The DSS uses cat swarm optimization for its distinctive exploration and exploitation capacities as an evolutionary multicriterion optimizer to solve this non‐linear programming problem. Moreover, it uses graph traversal techniques and heuristic fitness sharing mechanisms to find optimal configurations through a smart stochastic search. Using several key performance indicators, the efficiency of the proposed method is assessed on a 119‐bus distribution system by conducting a quantitative performance appraisal, considering demand variations. By introducing a set of viable alternatives to the distribution network operator, simulation results indicate the effectiveness of the proposed DSS.

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Purpose This paper aims to introduce a new structure for coaxial magnetic gears. Design/methodology/approach The study discusses the design and electromagnetic modeling of a triple-speed coaxial magnetic gear (TSCMG) for three different levels of torques in special applications such as wind energy conversion and electrical vehicles. The proposed TSCMG consists of inner, middle and outer rotor, which has one rotor more than its conventional counterpart. The suggested TSCMG’s related equations such as transform ratio and torque are calculated, then TSCMG is simulated in a finite element environment. A comprehensive study has been done on TSCMG, and results are compared with two other magnetic gears with the same volume but two speeds. Findings The obtained results show that the proposed structure for TSCMGs is significantly practical and applicable in higher ranges of torques. Finally, an experimental TSCMG is prototyped to verify the results. Originality/value The achievements are excellent and confirm that TSCMG can be used as powerful equipment in a wide range of application like permanent wind turbines to generate electricity in 24 h per every single day.

The authors introduce a new type of triple-speed coaxial magnetic gear (TSCMG) and analyses its operation with sensitivity analysis. The effect of various factors is evaluated on TSCMG performance, including the yoke thickness, permanent magnet (PM) thickness, number of pole pairs (gear ratios), axial length, pole-arc coefficient, PMs and air gap length. At first, a preliminary design of TSCMG is made, and then its optimal parameters are selected using sensitivity analysis based on the finite element method (FEM). Then, TSCMG is simulated by applying both preliminary and optimal design parameters. The flux density distribution and rotor torque within TSCMG are extracted. Analysis results show that TSCMG can offer higher pull-out torque and lower maximum flux density at the edges and corners of TSCMG. Finally, the performance of the designed TSCMG is validated with a prototype. This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.